January 27 – The Fork in the Road

by Pat Bean

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”–Neale Donald Walsch

It was a sunny day in 2004, just three weeks before I would retire from a 37-year career as a journalist, when I drove a brand new RV off an Ogden, Utah, sales lot. It felt like the butterflies in my stomach had developed thorns on their fragile wings.

Everything that had been a part of my past life was about to change. I had just blocked off all chances of remaining rooted in my small, but cozy home that sat in the shadows of the Wasatch Mountains I loved. There simply was not enough money in my future to both fulfill my lifelong dream of living and traveling on the road while maintaining fixed roots within a circle of friends that had taken over 20 years to acquire.

This day I had not only chosen the unknown road that lay ahead, but had wrapped my choice in cement. I had even traded in my Honda Odyssey as part payment for the undersized, 22-foot RV that was now my only form of transportation, and soon would be my only home.

By the time all the paper work giving me title to the 2004 Volkswagen Vista/Winnebago had been scrutinized, signed and finalized, it was early evening. I was too unsettled to take my purchase for a check-out spin. So, feeling tall and strange sitting behind the wheel with my new living, dining, sleeping, cooking and bathroom facilities behind me, I drove home. Emotional turmoil, good or bad, always sapped my energy.

On carefully pulling into my driveway, testing the wideness needed to turn my new RV, I heard frenzied barking from inside the house. It was how my dog, Maggie, reacted to the sound of strange vehicles invading her territory. She never barked when I returned home, nor did she at any of my frequent visitors. But she did not recognize this new vehicle.

When I opened the door, Maggie gave me a quizzical look of surprise. Then, realizing in a split second that something new was parked in the driveway, she dashed between my legs and ran out to explore.

I opened the RV’s side door and she eagerly hopped in. She slowly sniffed every surface she could get at, then finally hopped up onto the couch and gave me a look that I easily interpreted as: So where are we going? To explore America, the beautiful, I reply. I always answer my dog’s inquiring looks. .

And that’s how my my travels with Maggie began. It’s been a journey that’s now heading into its eighth year. And I still have nary a regret.

Pat Bean is a wandering/wondering old broad who is beginning her eighth year of full-time RV-ing with her canine traveling companion, Maggie. She is passionate about writing, nature, books and birds and writes a daily blog.

January 17 – I Will Take You Half-Way

 

 

 

By Janet Riehl

The rich cadence of an airport porter’s voice rises up singing. “Your voice does me a world of good,” I say, feeling as if we are in so many places, all at once. “I cannot begin to tell you. It’s like hearing good news from home.” His voice goes straight inside me.

“You just made my day,” he replies. That’s all we say or need to say. We’ve connected, and that’s enough. “It’s been a pleasure serving you,” he offers.

“And it’s been a pleasure being served,” I reply.

In this brief exchange we are enacting the ancient call and response of all African languages I’ve ever encountered. In Twi, the language of the Ashanti tribe in Ghana, West Africa, the leave-taking exchange literally rendered is: “I lie at your feet.” With the reply, “There is no need for you to lie there.” It is a way of say, “I am at your service.”

This exchange takes perhaps ten minutes, yet it makes my day, too. The courtesy and graciousness of his rich voice–a man whom I have not exchanged names with–connects me back to a dusty roadside in Ghana as I wait for a small bus (which runs on no particular schedule) to take me to the next village.

Two young women help carry my too-heavy bags and then stay with me. They keep me company until my uncertain transport arrives and I am safely on it and safely off. This is a scene I’ll repeatedly experience throughout the Africa of the 1970s–wherever I go, west, east, or south.

In Botswana, this is the custom of taking half-way. In a village one can spend the better part of the day faithfully performing this custom. It works like this. Upon the end of our visit, I escort you at least to the edge of my compound where the space of my home meets the communal space. This African custom is similar to the one in small towns of seeing off one’s guest.

If I have time, I’ll continue walking with you across the village toward your compound. Possibly, we may even hold each other’s hands, swinging them happily between us as we chat, until we reach some invisible intuited point at which we both understand we must part. Now our call and response ritual begins.

“Travel. Go well,” I will tell you, and you will respond, “Stay well.” And, I do as you take your first steps towards home, now traveling alone, with no one to protect you. And, I breathe in and out the perfume of your presence, turn, and make my way, now alone, with no one to protect me–towards home.

Thank you, dear man who talks with the good news voice from home. Thank you. That is where you took me when you carried my three bags and a box at the airport today.

JANET GRACE RIEHL–award-winning author, blogger, conference presenter, and Authors Guild member–lives in St. Louis. Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary is also an audio book Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music. Her poems, stories and essays are published in national literary magazines and anthologies. Visit http://www.riehlife.com/to learn more.

January 11 – Memento Vitae

by Andrea Savee

2010 was the second year in a row, and only the second time in my life, that I sent out Christmas cards. I don’t remember whose idea it was originally, mine or my husband Mike’s, but it was immediately agreed upon as a good one. We also agreed to use an image from our thousands of digital photos.

2009′s choice was a branch from a tree at the end of our street. With a little post-processing, the image flowered into a festive combination of blue sky, red and amber leaves, and spiky balls dangling like ornaments. I enjoyed imagining loved ones receiving our card and smiling.

Last year’s card featured me lying on the driveway of our friends’ home in the high desert, a shot taken during one of our many extended stays. Mike Photo Shopped miniature mes in pastel shades—yellow, pink, green, the colors of a soft desert sky—flying in formation above the recumbent me. He then pasted his grinning face onto one of the flying wives. Thus, another holiday greeting was created, angels delivering love and good wishes, and hopefully eliciting a chuckle.

Could it be it that a little more than a year ago we were still walking six miles a day? Or was the branch photo taken during one of our shorter walks, abbreviated because of Mike’s Parkinson’s, to around the block? And how long ago was it that those walks became just to the end of the street with our cat Chico darting from car to tree to bush following after us?

We trained Kittums (only he knows his third name “and will never confess”) to go on these walks, enticing him slowly a few houses at a time, allowing him to find safe havens along the route. Under Sam’s truck. Along June’s hedges. Pressed against our legs, tail anchoring him to his pride.

While Mike and I may cover less ground on our feet, we’re still out and about in a big way. Our truck stays loaded with supplies— tents, sleeping bags, Tupperware crates of canned food. We can decide at nine a.m. to hit the road and by noon be setting up camp in Joshua Tree National Park or lunching with friends Stan and Laura at their new casa, in nearby Yucca Valley, which has become our home-away-from-home.

Now that the four of us are retired and in love with the desert, we play like kids again, piling into the four-wheeler to investigate the surrounding hills, taking mid-day naps and slow walks down dirt roads, spending an afternoon hour watching quail outside the backyard window, and sipping cocktails at l’heure bleue under the space heater on the patio, spying coyotes lurking among the Joshuas.

In addition to being wishes of good will, the cards, like Lakota Winter Counts, record a memorable event from the year. They are souvenirs not from foreign places, but from the familiar places of our lives. Memento vitae.

Andrea Savee lives in Lakewood, California with her husband, Mike, and their cat, Chico. Retired from a career in business, Andrea enjoys traveling and writing. Her work has appeared in SCN journals and anthologies.